In late 1971, a track with a very distinctive rhythm section reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Isaac Hayes’s “Theme from Shaft”—and its rat-a-tat, sixteenth-note high-hat cymbals—hung out on the pop charts for three months before winning the Academy Award for Best Song the next year. Meanwhile, its shimmering rhythmic elements found their way into many of the songs that followed it that decade, in a musical genre that ultimately became synonymous with the Seventies: disco.

Like “Theme from Shaft,” disco’s early tracks were a syncretic blend of soul, funk, pop and jazz. They drew as much on homegrown Motown and Philadelphia sounds as influences from abroad, like 1972’s “Soul Makossa” by Cameroonian jazz musician Manu Dibango. And indeed, many disco hits from the first few years of the decade were by artists like the O’Jays and Barry White, who had already found success in those earlier American genres. Equally important in creating a signature disco sound were the nightclub disc jockeys who remixed tracks in innovative ways. DJs established disco as a genre belonging first and foremost to the dance floor; these were tunes meant to get you up out of your seat, not just listening, but moving to the beat.  

By the middle of the decade, disco had moved beyond its origins in Black, Latino and LGBTQ communities to the center of American popular music. The mainstream record industry had grown hip to the new sound—and its commercial potential. Artists like KC and the Sunshine Band and the Bee Gees minted hits. Female musicians like Linda Clifford, Gloria Gaynor and Thelma Houston became top performers, finding in disco another language in which to voice their new freedoms. After the release in 1975 of the risqué “Love to Love You Baby” (which also established a precedent for releasing extended cuts of songs for club play), Donna Summer earned the sobriquet “First Lady of Lust.”  Then in 1977, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack became a cultural juggernaut, selling more than 40 million copies.

By the end of the Seventies, though, disco’s commercialization led to a raft of releases that emulated the genre’s hallmark sounds but often lacked its soulful elements. Suddenly every musician, from ABBA to Rod Stewart, seemingly had a disco offering. Disco Demolition in 1979 offered dramatic evidence of a popular backlash, and in 1980, the Grammy Awards awarded a Best Disco Album for the first—but more tellingly, the last time. In the first year of the new decade, Billboard changed its “Disco” chart category to “Dance.” Still, while critics may have pronounced disco’s death, myriad musical forms that followed—from hip hop to house and beyond—bore witness to the genre’s influence. Disco might have gone the way of all things, but its sounds continue to be very much alive and well.

Immerse yourself in the sounds of the Seventies with this playlist from American Experience. We’ve included two songs for each year in the decade, starting with 1971. Do the hustle!